With population ageing in many regions and countries around the globe, the care needs of elderly people have become increasingly complex, often requiring a multiplicity of interventions/services from different institutional actors. Elderly care has therefore become a prominent topic of discussion among policymakers, service providers and scholars. While these discussions have finally started to include also LGBTIQ people, who appear to experience persisting discrimination, research on the relationship between ageing, care and sexualities remains underdeveloped, reproducing societal silence around the sexual lives of ageing people.

Rejecting ageist assumptions about the lack of sexual activity and/or the normativities of sexual practices among elderly people, this project, running under the supervision of Dr Cesare Di Feliciantonio and Dr Monique Huysamen, aims at providing evidence-based knowledge for a larger external funding application on the topic. There are two exciting positions available within the project:

i)                   The first position is aimed at producing a scoping review of the social care literature on ageing and sexualities, i.e. what is the state of the art in the field? What are the main concepts featuring in these debates? Do existing studies engage with social difference and intersectionality [along the lines of, among others, gender, sexual orientation, race, faith, ability, class, social and cultural capital] when analysing the relationship between ageing and sexualities? What are the main research methods used in the literature?

ii)                  The second position is more practice- and policy-oriented, i.e. it is aimed at providing an overview of publicly available policy and guidance documents that guide how the sexual life and sexual activity of older people who draw on care should be considered and supported by adult social care staff and providers. Policy and document analysis will therefore represent the main task for this role.

Selected candidates will have the opportunity to work in an inter-disciplinary research team while strengthening their analytical and methodological skills.

This internship represents 10 days of full time work or equivalent (~75 hours). This internship may be extended depending on project supervisor/intern availability. The hours can be spread out over May/June/July and this can be negotiated at the start of internship.